Science Shock: Met Office Continues to Site New Temperature Stations in Junk Locations

Over eight in 10 of the 113 temperature measuring stations opened in the last 30 years by the U.K. Met Office have been deliberately or carelessly sited in junk Class 4 and 5 locations where unnatural heating errors of 2°C and 5°C respectively are possible. This shock revelation, obtained by a recent Freedom of Information request, must cast serious doubt on the ability of the Met Office to provide a true measurement of the U.K. air temperature, a statistic that is the bedrock of support for Net Zero. Over time, increasing urban encroachment has corrupted almost the entire network of 384 stations with 77.9% of the stations rated Class 4 and 5, but it beggars belief that new stations are being sited in such locations.

The siting situation is just as bad over the last 10 years where 81.5% are rated junk, while over the last five years, eight of the 13 newly-opened stations are Class 4 and 5. Only last year, Arthog No 2 was opened in Wales with a class rating of 4, and the year before another class 4 was sited at Neatishead. It is one thing to inherit a network, one of whose stations goes back to 1794, that has become corrupted, but serious questions must arise as to why the Met Office is planting measuring devices at sites that cannot provide a proper natural air temperature. Using these data to promote the Net Zero project by suggesting temperatures are rising faster than they are, while implausibly calculating warming down to one hundredths of a degree centigrade, risks the state-funded Met Office becoming a national joke.

Citizen journalist Ray Sanders is on the Met Office case and regularly contributes to Paul Homewood’s online blog. He noted that Neatishead was sited just 19 months ago and asked why sites are being opened of such poor quality. He observed that “someone of a suspicious mind might think that they are deliberately adding these junk sites simply to make current U.K. temperatures artificially high”.

The class rating system for temperature measuring stations is set by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). It reflects both human and natural impacts on temperature measurements caused by nearby activities, buildings and other structures. Class 1 is pristine and in a “perfect” world can be considered a “reference” site, notes WMO. Barely 6% of the Met Office stations are Class 1. Class 4 sites are heavily corrupted by artificial temperature changing sources and come with WMO “uncertainties” of 2°C. Class 5 sites have “uncertainties” of 5°C and with no siting requirements could be located by the door of a blast furnace, or, as happens at airports, the super-heated exhausts of jet engines. Under ISO/WMO standard 19289:2014 (E), a Class 5 site “is a site where nearby obstacles create an inappropriate environment for a meteorological measurement that is intended to be representative of a wide area”.

Earlier this year the Daily Sceptic exclusively revealed that nearly one in three (29.2%) of Met Office temperature stations were in junk Class 5. And astonishingly, 48.7% were in Class 4. Just 13.7% or a paltry 52 stations are in Classes 1 and 2, where no “uncertainties” are set. The scientific scandal here is that the Met Office has known about the situation for years, but far from improving the network by careful siting of new stations, it appears to be intent on making it worse. To date, the Met Office has resisted giving a public explanation and the Net Zero-obsessed mainstream media have ignored the story. Instead, the legacy press has concentrated on promoting a diet of Met Office “record” and daily high temperatures often set at the same heat-racked sites. “Speaking truth to power” in this case has been replaced with acting as a helpful and unquestioning messenger for Met Office claims. As is usual in these cases, whether it be Covid cover-ups or a spaced-out U.S. Democrat President, mainstream media are nowhere to be seen, although the subject is widely discussed on social media.

Last month, the Daily Sceptic analysed a week of these claimed highs and found the hottest day in the U.K. was set at Heathrow airport no fewer than five times. Every day, many of the same dud sites feature at the top of the local lists. In Scotland, the measuring stations at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, Glasgow and Leuchars featured on four days out of seven. In England, Hull East Park was joined by Killowen on four days along with Usk, Durham and Pershore College on three.

Does the Met Office consider this is credible scientific information, presenting the same natural mini local heat spots as representative of the U.K. climate, or just Net Zero story telling? It is about time it provided an explanation.

Ray Sanders has been diligently researching the siting of Met Office stations. The situation at Neatishead clearly appals him since its recent siting was in a heavily-shaded location adjacent to a radar dome. Another new site in Kent is next to agricultural poly tunnels that change throughout the year. Others include sites in walled gardens deliberately intended to form micro climates of enhanced warmth, co-located with National Grid sub-stations, surrounded by newly-installed solar farms, in car parks and, “most absurdly, in exceptionally close proximity to aircraft”.

Aberdeen Dyce airport regularly records a regional high, and the photo above gives some clues as to why it does. Sanders comments that it is “staggeringly difficult” to understand how any rational meteorologist could defend the Dyce site. The square below the red marker is the temperature compound with what appears to be a nearby Airbus 320 with its engines pointing at the Stevenson Screen.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.